Yesterday morning, Riann Phillip, British Vogue’s features assistant, arrived at the office in an outfit that recalled the 74-year-old Princess Anne: an elbow-patched blazer and a persnickety, shin-skimming skirt worn with knee-length riding boots. Strange, I thought, that a politically-activated 25-year-old who listens to Shygirl should want to dress as if she was bundling corgis into the back of a Vauxhall Astra on an exeat weekend in the Highlands.
But this aristo-coded look has, in fact, been enjoying a revival – see: the collections of Laura Andraschko, Daniel Lee, Silvia Venturini Fendi and Mrs Prada, who last autumn introduced a series of pop-up Miu Miu stores named Miu Balmoral – which has less to do with reinforcing class hegemonies, and more to do, I hope, with the qualities associated with traditional British clothing. “Made to last, both in style (never high fashion, thus never out of fashion) and in material,” as The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook once outlined in 1982. “Tweeds, wools, silks, cottons; natural and dateless fibres.”
There was a whiff of this gin-in-a-thermos mood to Simone Ashley’s appearance in New York. Not long after landing in town, the actor was photographed in a Harris Tweed minidress with a coordinating shoulder bag from Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant’s Pre-Fall 2025 collection at Coperni. Sure, it was a little more Clueless than Princess Royal, but the designers said they, too, had been inspired by the young women working in their offices.
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